A Case of You

by Pamela Burford

  “You know, Paul, you always told me nothing would happen, you always said I’d learned to control it. Him. And after a while, I guess I began to believe you.

  “All I can say is, I hope to God we were right.”

  *

  “THIS IS ALL Joanne had on the Frigidaire.”

  “The Frigidaire?” Kit accepted the little pile of papers Etta Zimmerman handed her.

  “My guests tack their papers and whatnot on the fridge with magnets. You know.” Etta indicated the refrigerator with a toss of her bewigged head. The appliance was festooned with all manner of “whatnot”: receipts, invitations, business cards, picture postcards, fliers, newspaper clippings.

  The first item in Kit’s hand was a pink ticket from Sparkle French Cleaners. Jo had left a jacket and slacks. “Oh, great,” she muttered, “more clothes.” And she thought she’d bagged them all.

  Etta Zimmerman was about four foot ten and, at seventy-nine years of age, trim and well dressed. Unfortunately, the refined elegance of her wardrobe failed to divert one’s attention from the thing perched on her head. Big and blond and brassy. The hairline was implausibly low, and the netting clearly visible beneath the perky curls.

  Jo’s next piece of whatnot was a schedule of exercise classes at Valkyrie, a health club in a neighboring town.

  “Expensive place, that Valkyrie,” Etta volunteered. “Very chichi, you know what I mean? Not like the Y. Henry’s wife got her to join there.”

  Strange Jo joining a fancy place like that, Kit thought. The Y was more her style. “Henry?”

  “Joanne’s boss, Henry David. Owns the Pratte Citizen.”

  “Oh, yeah. I wanted to get over there to talk to him today, but I got wrapped up in going through Jo’s things, and then, well, I guess the day just got away from me. It’ll have to wait till tomorrow.” She’d call Noah after dinner and ask him to accompany her. Would he be free in the morning? She admitted that she hoped so, but chose not to peer too closely at her reasons for wanting to see him again. This was about Jo, after all. Only Jo.

  The last item was an appointment reminder, the kind that doubled as a business card. Jo was supposed to see Dr. Noah Stewart at 10:30 a.m. on June 21. A few days after she died.

  “Poor girl. Always at the doctor,” Etta clucked. “One thing after another, it was with her.”

  Kit flicked the card with her thumbnail. “Did she seem any different in the days or weeks before she died? More anxious, maybe?”

  Etta shrugged. “Anxious, who knows? She was like a little hummingbird, that one, always buzzing around. So much energy, you young people have. Coffee?”

  Kit grinned. “You said the magic word.”

  She planted her bottom on the beige vinyl seat of a well-worn dinette chair and dropped the papers on the table, which was draped with a plastic tablecloth sporting fat fruit. She watched the tiny landlady fill the old-fashioned steel percolator and plug it in, then open the oven—avocado green like the other appliances—and poke around. The aromas of meat loaf and roasting potatoes filled the enormous kitchen.

  “I don’t suppose you have a safe in the house?” Kit asked.

  That earned a puzzled frown. “What would I put in a safe?”

  “Would there be any place other than her room where Jo might’ve stashed something?”

  She pondered that for a moment. “Not that I can think of. Why? Something missing?”

  “A computer disk. A little one, three and a half inches square.”

  Etta pulled off her oven mitts. “Those were all stolen, no?”

  “All but one. I’d like to chase it down if I can.” Kit didn’t elaborate. She was certain Jo’s landlady knew nothing about the book her boarder had been writing.

  “Well, feel free to go through the garage, the basement, closets, wherever. Such a hodgepodge, they are. I can’t even find things I know I have.”

  “Thanks,” Kit said, though she doubted such a search would bear fruit. Jo wouldn’t have kept her valuable backup disk in the house. In Chicago, where she’d been a freelance writer, Jo always farmed out duplicate disks of important material to Kit and her father for safekeeping. Neither she nor Sal had received anything like that. Jo’s personal papers included no record of a safe-deposit box, though Kit intended to check with the local banks just to make sure.

  She watched Etta tear open a bag of Cheez Doodles. “I can’t say how long I’ll be here, Etta.”

  “So? You have Joanne’s room as long as you like.”

  “I assume she paid through the end of the month. If I stay longer—”

  Etta waved a hand dismissively. “If you stay longer, you stay longer. I won’t take your money.”

  “Etta—”

  “Eat.” She shoved the bag closer to Kit.

  Kit shook her head, grinning, but she obeyed. “Well, we’ll talk about it later. You’re a good person.”

  “Huh. You sound like Noah. Good karma, he says I have. Says I must’ve been a saint in a former life. Sure. Etta Zimmerman. Now, there’s a good saint’s name.” She munched in silence for a minute, then said around a mouthful of Cheez Doodles, “It hit that boy hard when Joanne died. I was there. I saw.”

  “You were there? At the treasurer’s party?”

  “Grace Drummond, I’ve known since she was a twinkle in her daddy’s eye. Sure, I was there. Me and about a hundred other folks.”

  Kit spoke softly. “Tell me what happened, Etta.”

  The landlady sighed and closed her eyes for a few moments, as if summoning the strength to respond. Kit hated to ask it of her, but she needed to picture it in her mind’s eye, to begin fitting the pieces together.

  Etta spoke at last. “Less than an hour into the party, it was. I’m talking to my friend Carol La Rosa from my book club when that Carlisle boy, Bryan, comes tearing across the lawn, yelling something about Joanne. Nobody paid much attention at first, such a hubbub, it was, everyone drinking and laughing and loosening up. You know.

  “And he’s hysterical, all red in the face. He grabs Al Drummond and knocks him down practically, shaking him. ‘Somebody help her!’ he’s screaming. ‘She can’t breathe!” Etta paused. “Back behind some birch trees, she was, at the edge of the lawn. Not five minutes before, I was talking with her. Not five minutes!”

  Etta’s face looked ashen. Kit remembered Noah’s reluctant description of Jo’s death.

  “She was still alive. Al ran to call 911, but the rest of us we’re looking for Noah, he’s nowhere in sight. It seemed like forever before someone found him in the solarium. But I guess it was less than a minute, really.”

  “In the solarium? Was anyone else with him?”

  “No. All alone, he was, sitting on one of Grace’s new wicker armchairs, sipping a schnapps.”

  Etta must have seen something in Kit’s expression, because she added, “Which doesn’t surprise me. He was exhausted, poor boy. Dead on his feet. Hadn’t slept in two days. Little Andy Kramer got hit by a car riding his bike. No helmet. Noah wouldn’t leave the hospital, Wescott Community, till he was out of the woods. I knew because Alice called me to cancel my blood pressure checkup. Tell you the truth, I never expected him to show, but there he was, at Grace’s party. Not that he was able to do anything for Joanne.”

  She took a deep breath. “She passed on in Noah’s arms.” She looked at Kit, her eyes moist. “There was nothing he could do, Kit. He tried.”

  “I know.” She laid her hand over the old woman’s. It felt as insubstantial as a baby bird, the bones prominent under papery skin.

  Etta squinted into the recollection, as if trying to make sense of the senseless. “So agitated, he was. I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “Agitated? You mean like distraught?”

  She shook her head. “He wasn’t himself, Kit. There was this look in his eyes. Cold. He was holding her, wouldn’t let anyone else near her. Even when she was gone. He... well, he scared me, I won’t deny it. It’s like something snapped inside him.”r />
  The aroma of coffee now competed with the cooking smells. Kit rose and located two mugs and the milk. She thought about Noah’s lively hazel eyes, framed by dark lashes and eyebrows in striking contrast to his pale hair. Cold? It was hard to imagine. But then, grief could do strange things to people, so they said. “They must’ve been very close,” she murmured, pouring the coffee, “Noah and Joanne.” She carried the mugs to the table and sat.

  “Sure. They were good friends right from the first.”

  Kit schooled her features. It wasn’t hard to make the mental leap from “good friends” to something more. Knowing Jo, anything was possible. He was her doctor, yes, but he was also tall, handsome, and powerfully built. With a yummy southern accent, to boot. No, Jo wouldn’t have hesitated, Kit knew. But as for Noah... well, who could say? Were doctors even allowed to mess around with their patients? She knew that kind of thing was a major no-no for shrinks, but what about regular MD’s? In any event, it was a cinch he wouldn’t want to advertise such a liaison. Not in this teeny “slice of Americana.”

  “Did Jo have visitors?” Kit asked. “Like a boyfriend?”

  “She never brought anyone here that I saw. That kind of visiting is done in the living room. The bedrooms are strictly off-limits, you know what I mean? That kind of trouble, I don’t need.”

  Kit looked at the wall phone—avocado, of course. “The day Jo died, the day her computer was stolen, she called me from here. Called my answering machine, that is.” How many times since then had Kit wished to God she’d checked her messages that day? She’d thought about it at lunchtime and decided not to bother. If she had...

  She sighed harshly. Hell of a lot of good ifs did Jo now. “Anyway, someone was with her then. I heard a man’s voice. Do you know who that might’ve been?”

  Etta shook her head. “Saturday mornings I run errands. I went straight to Grace’s from the video store.”

  “Perhaps one of your guests might know.” Kit lifted the mug to her lips.

  She shrugged. “You can ask. Malcolm might’ve heard something.” She let loose with a high-volume screech. “Malcolm!”

  As the hot brew flushed Kit’s sinuses, she grabbed a paper napkin and turned to see a man amble into the kitchen from an adjacent corridor.

  “Coming, Mrs. Z.” He was tall and heavyset, with thinning gray hair, dark-rimmed eyeglasses, and a light accent that sounded vaguely British. He carried a small glass ashtray and a lit cigarette, which immediately overwhelmed the cooking odors.

  “I can’t remember, dear,” Etta said. “Were you home the day of Grace Drummond’s party? The Saturday before last.”

  Kit anticipated the usual response when one is asked to search one’s memory: a thoughtful pause, a brief study of the ceiling, perhaps an um or uh for good measure.

  But Malcolm answered immediately, his gaze never straying from Etta’s. “I was at the Thackeray from ten forty-nine until three twenty-three. I made forty-seven dollars and fifty-five cents in tips.” He flicked the ash off his cigarette and brought it to his lips.

  His accent wasn’t British, Kit now realized, but Australian.

  Etta explained. “Malcolm parks cars at the Thackeray Inn on weekends when they have an affair. Weddings and christenings and whatnot. Elizabeth Murray gave herself a birthday party that day, didn’t she, Malcolm?”

  “Yes. A brunch buffet with a string quartet. Floral centerpieces with lots of balloons. Light green and lavender, and some Mylar ones that said ‘Happy Sixty-Fifth Birthday.’ I haven’t met this lady, Mrs. Z.”

  “Oh! Where’s my head?” She waved her hand in introduction. “Kit Roarke, Malcolm Ryder. Kit’s a friend of Joanne’s, Malcolm. From Chicago.”

  The bespectacled stare Malcolm turned her way was unnerving. “Joanne doesn’t get many visitors. What’s Kit short for?”

  A giant fist squeezed her chest, stealing her voice. Thankfully Etta had no such problem.

  “Malcolm.” The landlady beckoned him closer and laid a hand on his beefy arm. She spoke gently. “We talked about what happened to Joanne. You remember.”

  He looked at her for a few moments, then his expression deflated. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Z. I forgot.”

  “No need to apologize, dear.” She patted his arm.

  “I forgot.”

  “It’s all right, Malcolm,” Kit assured him with a smile.

  “Did I hurt your feelings?” He never blinked or shifted his gaze from Kit’s eyes. It was the kind of stare that screamed unhinged. Other than that and his interest in the social life of a corpse, he appeared normal enough.

  “Not at all. And since you ask, Kit is short for Kathleen.”

  Etta said, “Well, I better go get my permanent-press things out of the dryer.” She opened the door to the basement, flicked a light switch, and slowly descended the stairs.

  Malcolm took another drag of his cigarette—unfiltered, Kit noticed. Was all of Pratte caught in a time warp?

  “Are you going to live in Joanne’s room now, Kathleen?”

  “Uh... well, I am, yes. Just for a little while. A few days, maybe. And please, call me Kit.” No one called her Kathleen. Not since her mother.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Oh.”

  “And please don’t call me Mal,” he said. “It means bad. Also abnormal and inadequate. I looked it up in Joanne’s dictionary. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, tenth edition. She wrote in it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re not supposed to write in books.”

  “Well, no, that’s true,” she said. “But I guess Jo needed to make notes or something.”

  “Joe is a man’s name.”

  Kit took a deep breath. “So. Your room’s right over there?” She nodded toward the corridor, grateful for a respite from The Stare.

  “Yes.”

  “I guess you hear a lot that goes on in the kitchen.”

  “Yes. May I have some Cheez Doodles?”

  “Oh. Of course. I’m sorry. Help yourself.” She held out the bag, and he took a handful. “I don’t suppose you heard anything that morning before you left for the Thackeray. Jo’s— Joanne’s room was broken into early—nine, nine-thirty, when she was at the gym.” She indicated the exercise schedule lying on the table. “The Valkyrie.”

  “I was here until ten thirty-two, but I didn’t hear anything. It takes me exactly seventeen minutes to get to the Thackeray. They only need me on the weekends when there’s a party. Monday to Friday I work at the Fine Food on Linden Road. I maintain the physical plant.”

  He swept the floors, Kit surmised.

  “Sometimes I assist the security officer. Sometimes I bag groceries.”

  Her gaze went to the back door, off the kitchen, with its curtained, multipaned window located right above the lock. After she’d played her answering-machine tape for Chief Jordon, he’d told her the perpetrator had simply broken a pane of glass and let himself in. Malcolm’s room was at the back of the house. If he was here, he should have heard something.

  “Have you lived here a long time, Malcolm?” she asked.

  “Thirty-four years and seven months.”

  That rang a bell. “Noah—Dr. Stewart—mentioned you when I spoke to him earlier.”

  “I don’t like Dr. Stewart.”

  “No?”

  “He told me to quit smoking.” Malcolm took one final puff, clamping the butt between thumb and forefinger. He ground it out in the ashtray and delicately plucked a fleck of tobacco from his tongue.

  She smiled. “Yeah, well, that’s—”

  “And he told me to lose weight.”

  “Uh...” His girth attested to an appreciation of Mrs. Z.’s home cooking.

  “He said hypnotherapy might help me, and he knows a good hypnotist, but he’s on sabbatical right now. I don’t want to be hypnotized. I like smoking.”

  What was it with Noah Stewart and voodoo medicine? Kit wondered. TM, hypnosis. Was that what they were teaching in med school
s nowadays?

  “Am I fat?” Malcolm asked.

  “No,” Kit lied.

  “I like Dr. Whittaker,” he said. “He doesn’t tell me to quit smoking or lose weight.”

  For the second time in as many minutes, Kit was tongue-tied. True, she’d expected the townspeople to talk about Ray Whittaker—counted on it, in fact. But to hear Pratte’s most notorious former resident discussed in such benign terms—and in the present tense, no less!—rattled her. Then again, she had to consider the source.

  Once more, the landlady rescued her. “Nobody was telling folks to quit smoking in the sixties,” Etta grumbled, reentering the kitchen with a full laundry basket. “Leastways, not too many were. And why would anyone in their right mind tell you to lose weight back then, Malcolm? Like a stick, you were.”

  He took the basket from her and set it in a corner, his expression clouded in perplexity. “The sixties?” He extracted a pile of neatly folded sport shirts from the basket, juggling them carefully to avoid contact with his dirty ashtray. “Was it really that long ago?”

  “Thirty-two years, it’s been,” she confirmed. “Thirty-two years since Ray died.” She looked at Kit. “Do you know about our Dr. Whittaker?”

  Our Dr. Whittaker. The grudging possessiveness of the statement struck Kit. She began to comprehend what Joanne had somehow intuitively known.

  Ray belonged to Pratte. He was the boil on the town’s butt, the crazy aunt locked in the basement. The inescapable thing that was as much a part of this “unspoiled corner of Americana” as church suppers and strawberry festivals and overpriced ice-cream cones for the tourists.

  “Yes,” Kit said. “I believe Jo mentioned him.”

  Chapter Three

  HENRY DAVID PROPELLED himself through the water with enviable brawn and stamina. The lush head of silver hair seemed out of place atop such a youthful physique.